Highly integrated SoCs are common processing components in systems and devices used in end-user segments, including automotive integrated circuits, consumer electronics, voice and data communication equipment, and military applications. Such devices often integrate common analog and digital functions on a single-chip, single-die solution. Some baseband processors designed for mobile phones, for example, combine an image processor, an audio synthesizer, a video encoder/decoder, a display controller, and a radio frequency (RF) transceiver on a single, monolithic piece of silicon. Highly integrated SoCs may offer increased performance from a smaller die area, reduced power consumption, and lowered manufacturing costs compared to using multiple single-chip solutions to perform the same functions. However, as the performance of the individual device elements within the SoC increases, the interconnection between the respective device elements may limit the overall chip performance.
When the amount of information transferred between these integrated device elements increases, the system bus within the SoC becomes congested and less efficient, degrading the overall performance of the device. Performance monitoring tools, such as those used in central processor unit (CPU) architectures, may be used to identify performance bottlenecks and to help optimize the SoC system bus performance. These tools, however, have traditionally focused on profiling an application's performance with regard to the CPU and memory subsystem. Monitoring the SoC system bus creates additional challenges because the SoC system bus is typically not visible to the application. Therefore, there is a need to provide a comprehensive SoC system bus performance profiler to enable the identification of system performance bottlenecks.